Clutter

I watched a segment of a show called, “Clean House,” a couple of days ago and haven’t been able to get it out of my thoughts since.  The premise of the show is that at the request of someone in the family, a team comprised of a professional organizer, a carpenter and a designer descend upon a messy home, counsel the family about the errors of their ways, clear out the place, run a yard sale, and then set out to transform the house.

I like watching the show because it inspires me to tackle my own environs, but mostly because it makes my clutter tendencies appear minimal by comparison.

The segment I watched the other day featured a home worse than any I’d ever seen on the show.  This home was not only full of clutter, it was filthy and filled with furry creatures that had taken up residence amidst the debris.  Two humans lived in this chaos—a mom and her daughter who had just graduated and returned home from college.  I was ready to turn off the tv when the cameras switched to the mom being counseled over her extreme hoarding and obsessive shopaholic ways.  It was just astounding—with all the mess throughout her abode, she denied she had a real problem and instead blamed it on her “normal accumulation of stuff over 34 years.”  She really believed this—there was no convincing her that she had a problem—despite the show’s host letting her know that living as she had been was proof positive that she would have to change her ways if she really wanted to improve her quality of life.

I’ve been thinking about that session ever since—first amazed over the degree of the mom’s denial, and then wondering what aspect of my own life and ways I might be in denial over. So I turned to my journal and came up with four areas that I know, in my heart of hearts, could use tending to—three in my personal life; one in my business life.  While these areas are not nearly as extreme as the tv mom’s was, I have to admit that they do have a negative impact on the quality of my life.  I realize too that this isn’t going to be easy.  Even so, I’m getting excited over the possibilities before me, leading me to my wish for all of you today—

May today bring you new insights into what you need to change, alter, modify, expand upon, to make your life experience even richer than it presently is.